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Sputnik Sweetheart

“There’s a great line by Groucho Marx,” I said. “‘She’s so in love with me she doesn’t know anything. That’s why she is in love with me.’”

________

It made me sad. I felt like I was some meaningless bug clinging for no special reason to a high stone wall on a windy night, with no plans, no beliefs. Sumire said she missed me. But she had Miu beside her. I had no one. All I had was – me. Same as always.

________

And now here I was, inside a closed circuit, spinning my wheels. Knowing I wasn’t getting anywhere, but spinning just the same. I had to. Had to keep up that or I wouldn’t be able to survive.

________

You are optimistic one moment, only to be wracked the next by the surety that it will all fall to pieces. And in the end it does.

________

“When I entered college, though, I made a friend, the one I told you about. And my way of thinking started to change. I came to understand that thinking just by myself for so long was holding me back, keeping me to a single viewpoint. And I started to feel that being all alone is a terribly lonely thing.”

________

Did I do what was right?

I don’t think so. I’d only done what was necessary for me. There’s a big difference. Everyone? she’d asked me. Does that include me?

________

So that’s how we live our lives. No matter how deep or fatal the loss, no matter how important the thing that’s stolen from us – that’s snatched right out of our hands – even if we are left completely changed people with only the outer layer of skin from before, we continue to play out our lives this way, in silence. We draw ever nearer to our allotted span of time, bidding it farewell as it trails off behind. Repeating, often adroitly, the endless deeds of the everyday. Leaving behind a feeling of immeasurable emptiness.